


Xena: Warrior Witch

by Minimaliminal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Cutesy fluffy shit, F/F, First Kiss, First Love, Lesbian Character, Slytherin Xena, Teen Romance, all that sugary goodness, hufflepuff gabrielle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8982979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minimaliminal/pseuds/Minimaliminal
Summary: Xena is the pureblood slytherin that even Salazar would be wary of. It's been said that she's broken a kid's nose for looking at her funny, she sleeps in the forbidden forest because she feels more at home with the other monsters, the only reason she hadn't been expelled was because all off the other teachers were afraid of her and she might actually be a vampire.But all that and a bag of dragons couldn't keep Gabrielle away.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yo guys. I'm not sure who'll actually stumble onto this but the Xena fandom was in desperate need of an HP au. I mean, everyone else has got them except us. So I decided to write one up myself.
> 
> Please, feel free to leave a kudo or a comment. I have no idea what I'm doing but I can guarantee that it will be super gay and very cute.
> 
> (I'm also not terribly attached to the title so if anyone has suggestions, I am listening)

“She’s just like the rest of them, you know. You can smell the slytherin on her.” Lila whispered into her ear as they filled their plates with all of the mouthwatering food that the Halloween feast had to offer. Or at least, all that they could manage.

Gabrielle stuffed a buttered roll in her mouth and glanced across the room to the slytherin table. A girl sat at the very edge of the table, far from the rest. She seemed impervious to the halloween cheer that lit up the room. Her plate looked bare next to the mountains piled onto everyone else’s. She glanced around with vague interest, but didn’t interact with any of her classmates or acknowledge the decorations hanging all around her. “I really don’t think so. After how she saved my ass from those broom jock jerks? And look how she’s sitting so far away from everyone. She looks like she’s fitting in as well as a mermaid in a dragon’s nest.”

“So, she’s too slytherin for slytherin. She was probably just looking for someone to fight and didn’t even realize you were there.” Lila mumbled over her pumpkin juice. “Besides. You’re a first year. Do you really think she’ll give you a second glance?”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes. Sometimes, she couldn’t believe she and her sister ended up in the same house. She had always fancied herself more of a Gryffindor. Brave, strong, boisterous. It always seemed like they had the most fun. Not to mention they had the best quidditch players. But then again, she was unbelievably lucky to make into any house.

“You make it sound like I’m proposing marriage.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “I just want to say thank you, is all.”

Gabrielle got up, hauling her plate with her, and headed to the slytherin table. Behind her, Lila grumbled and hiss. Gabrielle didn’t listen. These strange divides between houses were ridiculous and stupid. Everyone goes to classes together, eats the same food, sleeps in similar dorms, and wears the same ridiculous robes. Why would it matter if she ate at a table that has a different colored tablecloth?

“Hey! I didn’t catch your name earlier. Mine’s Gabrielle.” She said as she swung herself onto the bench opposite to the mysterious witch with a back as straight as an oak wand and an expression as immovable as stone.

“That’s because I never told you.” She said briefly in between bites of turkey. She stared the first year down with her crisp blue eyes in the time it took to chew and rolled them as she swallowed. “You should go back to your friend. You don’t want to get mixed up with me.”

“She’s not my friend, she’s my sister. I just wanted to thank you for what you did this morning.” The girl looked impassively over her shoulder as if she had already left.

“I-… I would’ve been toast if you hadn’t jumped in.” The subtlest twitch of her eyebrow was the only indication that she was listening.

“Possibly literally. Look, if you want me to leave you can just say so. I just wanted to say thanks. I thought maybe you were like how everyone says slytherins are. But maybe I’m wrong.” The bench had only barely begun to warm up to Gabrielle’s body heat and she was already getting up. She was dreading her sister’s ‘I told you so’ speech already.

“No. It’s fine.” The witch mumbled, peering out from under her thick bangs. “You can stay.”

Gabrielle grinned, settling back into her place on the bench.

“But you should know, talking to me isn’t gonna score you any points.”

She rolled her eyes, pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice. “Everyone knows Hufflepuff isn’t exactly a harsh competitor when it comes to the house cup.”

The mysterious witch shot her a mysterious smirk, her eyes almost glowing under her thick bangs. “That’s not what I meant.”

Gabrielle shrugged it off. “I can take care of myself.”

They ate in relative silence for a long moment, only the roar of the other student’s conversations surrounding them. Gabrielle began to think this might not have been the best decision. Maybe she was intruding on this girl’s private time and she just didn’t want to seem rude.

“My name’s Xena.” She announced suddenly after she had cleared her plate.

It was only one sentence. But it was enough. A feeling of relief rose up in Gabrielle. She knew then that she’d made a new friend.

It was then that she unconsciously decided to do something absolutely crazy. Later, she’d look back on this moment and wonder what exactly influenced her to do such a thing. Was the pumpkin juice spiked? Had Xena cast a spell on her? Did she go temporarily insane? Was she possessed? The fact was that none of those things were true. She was entirely in possession of her faculties and sober when she leaned over the table and whispered “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure.” Xena looked mildly suspicious.

“I’m not actually a witch.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updating on this is going to be kind of spotty. Sorry guys, but I have a job now. 
> 
> Also, this doesn't really have a plot (yet[?]) and it takes place in the same time slot as harry potter but tom riddle doesn't go voldemort because his parents loved him or some sappy ass shit like that.

Like most first-year muggle born students, Gabrielle found all things magical absolutely fascinating and loved every single one of her classes. The element of wonder and excitement sparked by their introduction of an entirely different world hadn’t yet been dimmed by routine and apathy.

Unlike any other student ever to attend Hogwarts, Gabrielle was a muggle.

Not a squib. Not an untalented muggle born. Not a witch who accidentally lost their magic on the train. An entirely unmagical, boring muggle girl who had a magical, witchy sister. Her letter was a blatant forgery. Her wand was a modified chopstick. Her textbooks were just dictionaries with the dust jackets from her sister’s books pulled over the cover. She was so fake she was sure the only reason she hadn’t been dragged out by her ear yet is because no one here could imagine such blatant fakery.

At least Gabrielle could honestly say that she didn’t intend to take it this far. She lied her way in because she wanted to see the school her sister had been bragging about. She went along with her scheduled classes the best she could to be close to her sister and understand this new world that she belonged to. She had no intention of actually attending more than a week before someone found her out and she was sent home. Still, every moment that she could be with her sister and learn about this new side of her was worth it.

Somewhere along the way, she couldn’t quite remember where, she decided she’d try for the entire semester. She stopped making excuses as to why her wand wasn’t working in transfiguration and started actively trying to make it look like she could do magic. Which meant doing a surprising amount of rat-hunting.

One of her best resources in her grand deceit was her sister’s diary. She kept a meticulously record of everything she did every day including any assignments she completed. Now, she was not nor would ever be the kind of girl to steal people’s diaries and read them without their permission. But thankfully, Lila was glad to give her something of an edited version that listed all the assignments and in-class exercises she’d have to fake. Many of them included a rather astonishing amount of rats.  
  
Rats turning into cups, rats increasing in size, rats turning into cotton, rats changing color. Her life would’ve been so much easier if she just knew where McGonagall kept her rat supply. But she didn’t so she had to settle for setting non-lethal traps and crawling around in notoriously creepy places to catch her own. If you told her two months ago that she would have a sizable collection of rats in many different sizes and colors, she never would’ve believed you. And yet, here she was. On her hands and knees in the dungeons, searching for a pale rat calm enough not to scratch her too much while she applied green hair dye to its fur.

“Gabrielle, was it?” A darkly amused voice asked from directly above her. She looked up to find a pale face looking down at her. Gabrielle yelped and threw herself backwards, clashing against a suit of armor.

“I-I-uh got lost!” She shouted. “I didn’t mean to end up here, I just missed the 6 o clock staircase and well, I have a really terrible sense of direction. When I was nine I took a wrong turn to get to the restroom and ended up getting swept into a tour bus with a bunch of really polite german tourists. Long story short-“ her desperate babbling was cut short by a calm, level voice.

“I already know your enrollment here is illegal, you think I’m gonna care that you’re out after bedtime?” The voice rang a bell in Gabrielle’s mind and slowly, the dim figure looming over her became recognizable. A large rodent escaped from her grasp. It took her hours to catch that one. “Is that a rat?”

“Yeah, uh. I guess since you already know about me… I-uh. I keep rats up my sleeve for transfiguration. I wait until there’s a distraction- and there’s always a distraction- then… switch them.”

Xena smiled. Well. Gabby thought it was a smile. It was rather discreet and there wasn’t exactly much light to see it by.

“That’s ridiculous.” She said with the slightest huff of a laugh. Gabrielle tried not to combust. She scrambled up to her feet and dusted her cloak off.

“Yeah. Well, it works.” Gabrielle sighed, silently wondering how she was going to track down another rat and still get a decent amount of sleep that night.

“You have transfiguration with the Gryffindors, right?” Gabrielle nodded. “That explains it. Lots of distractions to work with.”

Gabrielle laughed. It was too true. They couldn’t go three seconds without setting something on fire or turning their ears to geckos. Something sharp whizzed by her head, causing her to flinch.

“Got it!” Xena crowed, jogging across the hall to retrieve the rat she’d manage to pin to the ground with what looked like a quill. “Don’t let this one get away.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Gabrielle blinked in surprise at the fat, docile rat she found herself holding. “So what are you doing down here so late?”

Xena shrugged and slowly started walking down the hall. Without thinking, Gabrielle followed.

“There are a lot of rumors about you, you know.” She mentioned, off hand. Just to break the silence. She was something of a rumor connoisseur. She didn’t participate of course, but she was a very good listener and Hogwarts rumors are like ten times better than the garden variety ‘he said, she said’s. They usually involve vampire attacks or love potions. Who could resist that?

“I’m not a vampire nor have I ever been attacked by one.” It was said in a certain practiced monotone popular among depressed mcdonald’s workers, which told Gabrielle that she’s been asked about it about a hundred times now.

She laughed, half with genuine humor and half to cover u the fact that he was about to ask the very question Xena just answered. “How did that rumor even start? Wow. People can be… something el-.”

“A vampire tried attacking my second year dorm mate. I dragged her out by her hair, took her to professor Mcgonagall and she was never seen again. People think I ate her and then they started thinking she bit me, turned me into a vampire and then I ate her out of revenge… I think the rumor that’s in vogue right now is that she’s still alive, but lives in the forbidden forest and picks off curious first years for us to share in a bloodlust fueled orgy.” She seemed almost proud of the rather ridiculous reputation she’d gained in a strange, exasperated way.

“Wow.” Gabrielle sighed, entirely mystified by the larger-than-rumor figure walking in the dark beside her. “What about the one that’s been going around about how you did a Crucio on Dumbledore?”

“That one’s true.”

Gabrielle gawped shamelessly.

“Not really.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! this chapter was actually really easy to write, surprisingly. 
> 
> I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

“Hey Gabrielle, are you coming to lunch or have you found out how to sustain yourself on knowledge alone?” Xena declared, just a decibel too loud for the library. The girl in question panted, having just suffered a heart attack at her friend’s sudden appearance.

“Jesus!” She gasped, turning to face the rather smug Slytherin. “You can’t sneak up on me like that! How’d you even find me?”

“We have history next period. So you’d be frantically cramming as much history as you can before class so you don’t look like an idiot in class.” Xena explained, sitting on the edge of the ornate desk Gabrielle had been studying at. She took a bite of the pear she’d been holding and leaned over the book Gabrielle was avidly studying. “What’s a Jesus?”

“Jesus is a- was a… dude. An important dude who might not have existed.” Gabrielle explained vaguely. She didn’t have the time or brainpower at the moment to explain the tangled roots of Christianity to her witch friend. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to lunch today. I need to know this material or… something might happen.”

Xena shut the book and pushed it aside. “Gabrielle, no one gives a shit about the history of wizardry. Not even wizards. Everyone uses that period as nap time. Come eat something.”

Gabrielle sighed and gave in to the inevitable, packing her pen and scrolls of notes into her bag. “You know you’re not supposed to bring food into the library, right?”

Xena shrugged and took another bite.

Theirs was an easy friendship. So easy, most people found it strange. Hell, Gabrielle thought it was a little weird how well they got along. Xena has said multiple times in no unclear terms that she did not like people. Yet, she sought Gabrielle’s company just as often as the other way around. It was always done with a sort of casual air. Like a cat. As if the witch just… happened run into her in the library which the muggle knew she normally would never set foot it. Or Xena was simply having a stroll around the Hufflepuff common rooms after dark on the one night Gabrielle was feeling too homesick to sleep.

“You know, you’re not actually a bad student,” Xena told her with a concerned smile as they walked down the corridor to the great hall. “You think you are because you’re an awful witch. But-“

“Hah. Wow, thanks. I actually thought you were giving me a compliment for a second there.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes, though she knew it to be true. Well… true in the sense that a fish makes an awful dog.

“Oh just listen for a second.” Xena huffed, batting her arm lightly. “You don’t have much magical talent, but you’re legitimately passionate about understanding the material and learning as much as you can. That’s more than I can say about even the prefects around here.”

Gabrielle beamed. Not just because of the complement but because of the person who gave it to her. Xena was one of the most talented witches in Hogwarts. She didn’t show it off much and allowed everyone to misattribute her actual skill to rumors they heard of curses and arcane deals with unsavory figures, but she had a natural talent for everything she so much as considered attempting. It wasn’t just sheer magical power but a sort of knack for knowing how things work. Gabrielle knew that she could not in a million years learn to do magic, but she admired Xena for her expertise all the same.

She hoped that one day she could get as good at one thing as Xena was with everything.

“Hufflepuff or Slytherin today?” Xena asked as they approached the golden light of the hall. She pretended to ignore the way Gabrielle grinned up at her like a puppy. But not so much that Gabrielle couldn’t tell that she was amused.

Gabrielle took in the gentle roar of the student’s chatter as they crossed the threshold. The bright lights and intoxicating smells. The sky above them swirled like milk being stirred into tea and the stars were like tiny chunks of sugar. “Let’s change things up today. Let’s sit with the Gryffindors.”

Xena groaned, suddenly losing three inches off her height by hunching into an irritated slouch. “Not Perdicas.”

It was too late, Gabrielle was already steering them down the length of the Gryffindor table towards the middle, where the Quidditch team hung out. “Yes, Perdicas. He’s my boyfriend and you could do with some human interaction with people other than me.”

“That’s what Argo’s for,” Xena grumbled

“Hey, Perd! You wouldn’t mind if we sat with you, would you?” Gabrielle smiled, flirtatiously. Through the corner of her mouth, she hissed “Argo’s a parrot, they only pretend to talk.”

Perdicas, the Keeper with the dopey smile and awful haircut, beamed at Gabrielle and gave Xena a brief, bewildered glance. “Yeah, sure! Sit anywhere.”

“Argo’s got a wider vocabulary than Perd, that’s for sure,” Xena muttered under her breath as she begrudgingly sat between Gabrielle and the Bludger. Gabrielle elbowed her hard in the arm.


End file.
